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Press release

Striking gold in Greece with honey - and 24-karat edible gold!

14 April 2018

The story of Yiannis Karypidis and his wife Stavroula Theodorou could be a script for a Hollywood movie. Seven years ago, because of the economic crisis, they were ready to leave Greece and emigrate to England-until an afternoon walk in northern Evia changed their plans and the course of their lives.

Now they live in Chalkida and produce organic honey made with 24-karat edible gold: which they export all over Europe, as well as Asia, Australia, USA and Canada.

As Karypidis explains to NEO, when the financial crisis "hit his door" he had to find a job abroad while his wife attended a postgraduate program in her field. All that time, alongside preparations for going abroad, the couple avidly watched an ERT 3 show titled "True Scenarios," which featured innovative businesses being launched in the agri-food sector.

"We made a day trip to northern Evia and found it to be a beekeeping area," explains Karypidis. "It was then the time when start-up businesses had emerged in the agricultural sector and we thought about trying it out. We had to scramble at first-but it came out for the best." That's how their Stayia Farm came about.

Honey, mixed with 24K edible-gold, is what helped them grow quickly¿they began exporting in only six months. "We tried the edible gold at an exhibition of olive oil and wine and we liked it. We thought about mixing it with honey and using it as a marketing innovation for a Greek product, because there was no similar product in the world. And the Vasilissa (Queen) Honey came to be. We launched it, and all this gave us huge publicity completely free of charge. It was the only honey with 24K edible-gold worldwide. And all this attracted, besides the local media, international media like Reuters. Everything was totally random. Our first ideas were totally amateurish, but we eventually succeed," he says.